The Siegel+Gale Global Brand Simplicity Index features a ranking of the “simplest” and most successful brands. According to their rankings, the top ten are:
- Subway
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- Amazon
- Netflix
- Publix
- Apple
- McDonald’s
- Starbucks
- Zappos
There are two themes present among these ten:
- creative names
- great logo designs
Subway is a play on words of course. They sell submarine sandwiches, not trains. Netflix is a great suggestive easy and fun word. Dunkin’ Donuts is fun to say, alliterative and suggestive of coffee and pastries. Google is suggestive of large numbers – googolplex. Zappos is taken from the Spanish word for shoes, zapatos.
And check out the logos below. Simple. Clean. Iconic.
Whether your business is large or small, these examples are powerful. Is your brand name overly simple? Is your logo unnecessarily cluttered? Simple is good. Simple can be powerful.
Additional reading: Co.Design – Google, Ikea, Apple: The World’s 10 Simplest Brands
